♫Ultravox - Your Name (Has Slipped My Mind Again)♫

----------------------------------------

...

So cold... Cough. Unfortunately, it ain't only the air I breathe.

It's snowing outside, but nobody cares. Cough. They don't have the time, and the patience to see the layers of white slowly coming one above other atop the ceilings, rooftops I once stood instead of this bed. The people keep moving, children keep playing, and nobody stands still alike the trees, sharing of green and white leaves, or nothing at all, only bald branches. When dry, they are used to warm up the fireplace, mainly at night or days cold like this one. I've always came late at night, so late that it was already another day, so the clockwork's arrows told me so. Blurred was my vision like now, when I feel my skin, not only pale but without any sign of wrinkles upon the face; but when I touch my back, I can read an entire manuscript of a life. The greater the scar, the painful it was for me, less for others. My arms and legs are numb not because I am weak, but sincerely what else would I do with them? There are a plenty of ways to wave a goodbye to someone.

Cough cough... Once with these hands so near of fire, of danger, so do other people and the centimeters and miles kept away from me. This happened before, twice. Not counting my own birth. When I thought it would be my end, so it began two lifes, unrelated by days, age, and the state of my mind. I didn't cared that much for Jack, my first son, because I was far more interested to come back as a Dragoon Knight to rather be taking care of a child other than I when younger. I am still young, but diseases today are spread for everyone to each one. Cough... I don't deserve any of this... nobody does. I am able to hear their conversation as much as I tried my best to understand what those little mices were trying to talk to me. Jack and Freya had an excuse to speak nonsense instead of these grown-up people. Cough... and I was advised to talk less, but that won't change anything. Nobody, except me, to be here. So full of people this house became, yet I'm alone. Cough.

At least, some of them gave me gifts other than singing me a melody of sobs. Cough... The duty I've spent over years of the life I once had is already a gift enough for them all. I thought I would never be gifted by them on a way like they did when these weeks came to brought my curtain down. It didn't happened yet, maybe I am already dead. I died twice; fifteen years ago, ten years ago, and this makes the third strike. No more that I can cheat life, I don't have a reason to do it anymore. I spent some time with Jack, as much as I could do the same with Freya, and their father. Bart... if you could answer me where they had taken you, I would be living for another twenty years. No, I don't need any potions, they don't have any effect as much as Regen only makes me glow like a firefly, for a while. A life can't be spent like that... just glowing. When will I be able to step into the sunlight? The rain doesn't allow that amount of light in this land, so does me who do not accept of any medicine.

The drugs... they do not work. They just ease the pain. They just make me talk with a voice that doesn't belong to me. Cough. It ain't only the walls that are secluding us, or the free will. It's the fear... Remember when you used to lay each night on a bed smaller like this one, so does this world you've believed it was about to explode, or implode... either way we all would be gone. Scared I was, but the others were only afraid, as if it was nothing else. They were adults, just like the Dragoon Knights restricted only to walls like these ones belonging to my room. I felt the same when I became a Leviathan Knight, surrounded by tides of Bahamut Knights, or in sort, male knights. Except that javelins aren't alike people, because they hurt everyone in the end. I'm not scared, or afraid anymore, because I've saw so many tragedies that became banal, people becoming shells of any knowledge, the language being told in slang words, the duty devouring me into pieces throught the time I was beginning to surpass each obstruction with a jump, but I didn't knew what to do next, because I've did the same once. Two. Fifty-hundred times in a row.

Why did I... Cough!... why Lenneth? Why you've insisted to do this? I ask for myself, but that is the wrong person to whom are you looking at. First came Jack, holding of an infant in his arms. My only grandchild, but his father isn't my only son left. If by the tradition who keeps telling us that a life shared with many sons is a sign of happiness and prosperity, or just because I was still young like now, only later, far later but not enough so I could take a nap, not yet... How much time is left for me, I ask, but there is no answer. If there was one, I would be upset instead of smiling. I did it so for Jack, so I did the same when that door opened, allowing of the presence I've been awaiting to como from Freya. This long. Cough... She looks alike me, but way better. That's only the appearance of any water, whose surface may share of plenty of ripples. The white hair of mine, and the eyes of father... she ain't only my daughter, but yours as well, Bart.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

While Jack is pretty much alike yours, not only because he spent most of his time with your custody, Freya is a split-image of mine, but she now shares of her own life, althought she ain't willing to leave this house, so do I, but I am not her. Cough. I can see, feel that my dear trembles a bit each time I do not talk in words, but coughs up like these ones. What else do I have to talk? A plenty of things to be done, and to be allowed to do it so... I want to go to the bathroom, yet I do not. There is no use for doing that, because everything stops someday. Spears get rusty, clothes get tore apart, spiders drown in the sink, books get eaten by moths when children, while the ones belonging to me only listened to its words. It's all but a memory, but everybody remembers the name of someone close. How many times they repeated the name Lenneth and only to me, without being followed of a Crescent? That would be the same as asking how many breathes I've taken within a life, how many times my heart pumped in relation to how many times I had to feel it inside my chest...

Throught my entire life, I had made or came across many questions, and no answers. If someone alread answered them instead of us, this would be a rather boring life. Why would it? Is it something related to experience? Because one already surpassed you, something above that isn't even human, or material? As much as I was born in a blank state, I'll leave this same world with many questions left unanswered. I could ask for someone to solve them for me, but I wouldn't be here to hear it. I can hear anything. Freya always seemed to be the type to wake up in the middle of the night, so suddenly. Later we would taught her to talk instead of shout, you did it so for a short amount of time, enough to be remembered by them both, Bart. Sometimes, I would ground these kids, and that was only the sort of punishment I could find for them, not that I ever wanted to do it so. Only an assassin, something less than an animal would make an infant lay with their stomachs down. Cough.

Freya... her white strands look alike a tree full of tussock moths, and I was the only one allowed to touch it without getting hurt. Same for Jack when taking a bath, but in the end, they knew I was doing it for their sake, not only mine. Cough. Unlike the others guests, some belonging to my family, Freya came with a gift unlike another. I thought her presence as a whole was enough of a gift, just like fifteen years ago, with my arms and legs numb not because of my own will. The name I choose for that child came to my mind within the days Bart was gone, but I knew he would return. Just like when heroes does inside the novels, or in words decipting our legends. Instead, Bart only came back, and nobody else knew of his, other than the people whom he had made his ties. Cough. Often we would drink some chai with each other, sometimes I would drink a cup on my own, but he always knew how to make a presence even when he wasn't there anymore. Sitting right at my side, there she is... Cough, cough!...

I'll be always here, mom... then I wish I could have lived a bit longer for you to accomplish such, but then I remember that I don't want to. To live like this for so long didn't meant anything worth of a life, if there wasn't anyone like your daughter. I knew she never enjoyed the kind of cup I've drank, by watching her cheeks grow in size. It is almost as if she was willing to throw it away, but couldn't to make a good impression. It was worth a smile, after all. I began to speak something out of mind as soon as I've looked at someone other than Freya. The window... there it lies the visions of an outside world, whom I've used to protect, and to feel cold. But, like Freya said, I ain't no giant to be stepping over these lands, thought I once could feel the touch of the clouds, the true giants that don't even belong to this earth we've step. Cough... Yes, I've touched the skies, I could feel it, so light, free as a bird, but they always return to their nests like a salmon jumps a waterfall to be back at home. Back to this bed I am, frozen is the waterfall. No matter how high were the buildings, none of them will ever reach the clouds, only those who fell... like dreams.

And then I looked up... I looked up... up... and all that I had put behind were dreams. I wish... I wish I could had lived longer, instead of a dream. I wish that I could have... stepped into the sunlight... only a few fires that I kept putting out, where the rain couldn't reach... so does my own. Only your own?... So cold... Cold... The cicada only sang at the summer, and when winter came, she shrunked inside its shell, and she never came out... Same also happened to the ant who worked hard... because they were both insects, and winter, unlike people, doesn't forgive anyone... One potato... two potato... Potatoes, Jack. Potatoes...

...